Inspiring Presenters – Association of Teachers of English of the Czech Republic

Zoltán Rézműves has been an English teacher for over 30 years, starting out in 1990 in a Budapest Secondary School. After many years as an editor for an International publishing company, Zoltán set up his own publishing services company called Consonant Kiadó and became a freelance author, teacher trainer and editor. He has also written numerous teacher’s books, practice and test materials for several International publishers including Cambridge University Press and Assessment. Zoltán’s teacher training and conference work has taken him to over 35 countries worldwide and in 2018 he was Vice-President of IATEFL-Hungary.

Charles Stewart has been working in the ELT field since 2011, teaching ESL, speaking at various ELT conferences around the Czech Republic and writing and delivering teacher training in several countries around the world. Throughout his teaching career, Charles has been fortunate to teach all levels, both young learners and adults. However, over the last several years, his focus has been drawn more towards teaching young learners, both general English for Primary ages, and exam preparation classes for secondary students. Consequently, Charles is heavily involved in the Young Learners Department at the British Council in Prague, where he currently lives and works, and teaches Exam preparation at a local Czech Gymnasium (High School).

Dunstan Clarke has lived in the Czech Republic for 14 years and has been a teacher at the British Council for 12 of these. In addition to teaching at the British Council, he has also taught at CVUT and Charles University and as a CELTA trainer at Accent. He has a DELTA and an MA in applied linguistics and is in the final year of his PhD in pure linguistics. His areas of interest include English a Lingua Franca, language ecology, language and complexity theory, psychology and cognitive linguistics.
He is married with two children whom he lives with, alongside a cat, called Penny.

László is an aspiring professional who loves all things related to education, with a primary focus on language teaching. He has gained experience working with various age groups in both public and private settings. While pursuing a PhD in multilingualism, he is a full-time lecturer at the University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary, and a freelance English teacher and materials writer. His main research interests lie in authentic classroom materials, educational technologies, as well as teaching life competencies and digital intelligence. He has been on the IATEFL-Hungary committee since 2018 and acted as President of the Association since January 2022.

Flo has been working in ELT since 2010 and is CELTA and Delta-qualified. She has worked as a teacher, Cambridge CELTA and Delta trainer, content developer and examiner in the UK, Italy, Vietnam, China, and Malta. She has run workshops and delivered seminars and webinars on a range of ELT topics both in Europe and Asia. Flo has worked for a number of ELT school groups including seven years at International House in a range of roles, and is currently the National Geographic Learning ELT Sales Executive for Central and Eastern Europe. In her free time, she enjoys travelling, reading psychological thrillers, and sampling wines from around the world.

Dr Agnieszka Dzięcioł-Pędich teaches English for Specific Purposes and trains pre-service teachers of English at the University of Białystok. Her research interests lie in the area of specialised tertiary language education, inclusive education, language teachers’ professional needs and technology in language teaching.

Mgr. Jana Čadová, exploits her basic school teaching experience as a mentor and a tutor. As a teacher trainer and an ELT consultant, she has been preparing and giving seminars since 2001. She has also been giving tailor-made seminars and methodology support for publishers ( e.g. Cambridge, Longman, Oxford, FRAUS), educational institutions ( e.g. NPI, VISK) and schools within the Czech Republic. Since 2002, she has been responsible for methodology retraining programmes for English teachers at NPI (NIDV), at VISK, at Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies (MIAS) in Prague, at Metropolitan University Prague and at the School of Business UCT Prague.
She is a member of ATECR/AUACR and AMATE z.s. – a professional association of mentors in the Czech Republic.

Lukáš works as a teacher in Rychnov nad Kněžnou and also gives workshops as a creative lecturer. Besides language skills, he likes to develop soft skills in his lower-secondary classes. He is the author of the Key Competencies Card set. Besides MonkeyEnglish YT videos is he one of the administrators of AktivníUčitel.cz Lukáš studied at the Faculty of Education in Hradec Králové. His career as a teacher started in 2000.

Pavlína Štefanová is a new member of the Oxford University Press team where she started working as an Educational Consultant and even though she studied Cultural Anthropology of the Near East at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, she has always been passionate about languages. Her work stay in Egypt helped her improve both her English and Arabic and as a result she could share her love for both of these languages with children as their English and/or Arabic teacher.

Petr Hedbavny inspires teachers, special-needs educators, pupils and students to love teaching and learning. To facilitate organic learning, he uses educational games. His main goals are to help others to use their potential to the full, pass on the capacity to think both analytically and out-of-the-box and to spur both creativity and teamwork. He loves languages, math, fine arts and applied creativity. He plays the accoustic guitar. He is a co-founder and CEO at Imaglee, a creative edu cards project. He also teaches economics at the Charles University in Prague. He is father of Anna (12) and Martin (10).

David Fisher is the founder and director of The Bear Educational Theatre in Prague, the most productive and longest-running English theatre in the region. He has worked as an English teacher in various institutions and has led teacher-training workshops at conferences and OUP tours. He is also a professional actor with over fifty theatre and film credits theatre and film productions.
David specializes in taking practices from the world of entertainment and applying them to classroom teaching. The aim isd to make lessons more effective by making them more entertaining.

Sylvie Dolakova is a teacher trainer focusing on working with children aged 3 – 15, with more than 25 years of experience. She specialises in teaching English through art and stories, publishes books and story-based teaching sets for children (Pearson ELT Teachers‘ Award for the best innovation). She presents at conferences and webinars all around the world, she has also worked as an ELT consultant (NILE, Norwich, British Council etc.).

Tom is an English teacher who specializes in teaching vocabulary through the use of mind maps. He is the author of a vocabulary workbook in the form of mind maps and also conducts workshops on how to effectively learn and teach vocabulary in context through the use of mind maps. Additionally, he has released an app called Mapulary.

Tom Czaban is a writer, editor, and teacher from the UK. He has over ten years of teaching experience, predominantly in China and the Czech Republic. As well as ghost-writing several works of non-fiction, Tom is the author of The 7 Mindsets of Highly Effective Teachers, and 101 English mistakes Czechs Make. He currently lives in České Budějovice, where he spends the bulk of his time creating and editing web content.

Tom has been teaching since 2014. He is CELTA and Delta (M1 ;
M2) qualified and holds an MA in teaching English and German from
Masaryk University. In addition to working as an examiner for Cambridge,
teaching at both a secondary school and a university, he keeps himself
busy by struggling with a PhD in corpus linguistics at Charles
University. His research interests revolve around corpora, learner
language and teaching methodology.

Anica Đokić is an EFL teacher from Serbia. She has been teaching for 18 years. She is also an active member of ELTA Serbia and a former board member. Anica is an experienced teacher trainer. Her ELT interests include using art, teaching unplugged, etc. In her free time, Anica enjoys sports, nature, reading and crocheting.

Joe Dale is an independent languages consultant from the UK who works
with organisations such as The British Council, the BBC, Skype,
Microsoft and The Guardian. He was host of the TES MFL forum for six
years, a regular conference speaker and recognised expert on technology
and language learning.

Radka has been teaching foreign languages for over fifteen years, gaining experience in a wide range of classes for special purposes and with all age groups. She now specialises in teaching professional English to adults and utilising her lifelong passion: technology and video in the classroom. As a teacher trainer and conference speaker, she follows the same principles as a language teacher; activate your students, make the session meaningful and have fun! She is also the author of additional material in the Lifestyle and Next Move series of textbooks. Radka’s educational background includes a Master’s degree in English and Italian from Charles University, Prague.

Born in Boston, USA, Tery is an experienced teacher and teacher trainer and has taught English as a foreign language at all levels. Since 2011, he has been working as an ELT consultant and has conducted teacher training seminars all over the world. Tery is an engaging speaker who develops a special rapport with his audience due to his vivacious personality and his ability to draw the link between theory and practice in practical terms that teachers can easily relate to and find easily applicable in their classrooms.